2015-03-12, 22:13
So after a few years of using XBMC/Kodi, I started getting frustrated at the fact that Kodi cannot play HD video files from my NFS server without constant stuttering and pausing to buffer, while on the same system, the videos play in Media Player Classic just fine. In fact, I was able to get 6 videos playing simultaneously, all ~20GB, from the same file server before I ran into any noticeable performance issues.
Why is it with the exact same hardware, network, and files, Kodi can't keep up with a single video? I have no idea, but the issue appears that Kodi is not properly mounting NFS sources, or at least it is not doing so with parameters that are sufficient for it's intended task. Here's what I was able to do to fix it:
Manually created mount points.
Since I'm using OpenELEC as my main HTPC, I created the file: /storage/.config/autostart.sh with the following contents:
Then I edited /storage/.kodi/userdata/sources.xml with the new paths.
Finally, I used sqlite to update the paths in /storage/.kodi/userdata/Database/MyVideos90.db.
Now, all my video files are playing without pausing, they are seeking nearly instantly, and I don't get that annoying bug where Openelec reboots after unpausing the video after 10 minutes.
I expect that this solution is going to come with it's own issues since Kodi is not going to see these files as being on a network drive, but at this point, I don't care, the files just don't play properly otherwise.
Note, Kodi's implementation appears to be the root cause of this issue as it is not platform specific in anyway. I was able to reproduce this issue perfectly on the newest OpenELEC build, as well as the latest windows build for Kodi. Also, all testing was done with a brand new Kodi installation/profile.
My question is why is this happening, and why don't I see more people complaining about this? I have been fighting with this issue ever since I started to appreciate higher quality files. Am I the only one playing large files over the network? Have the majority of users accepted the fact that with the default configuration Kodi is incapable of playing large video files over the network? Or does everyone already know that NFS sources should be manually mounted?
Why is it with the exact same hardware, network, and files, Kodi can't keep up with a single video? I have no idea, but the issue appears that Kodi is not properly mounting NFS sources, or at least it is not doing so with parameters that are sufficient for it's intended task. Here's what I was able to do to fix it:
Manually created mount points.
Since I'm using OpenELEC as my main HTPC, I created the file: /storage/.config/autostart.sh with the following contents:
Code:
#!/bin/sh
sleep 15
mount -t nfs 192.168.42.10:/mnt/vpool0/Shared /storage/mnt/Shared -o udp,noatime,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,nolock,nfsvers=3
Then I edited /storage/.kodi/userdata/sources.xml with the new paths.
Finally, I used sqlite to update the paths in /storage/.kodi/userdata/Database/MyVideos90.db.
Now, all my video files are playing without pausing, they are seeking nearly instantly, and I don't get that annoying bug where Openelec reboots after unpausing the video after 10 minutes.
I expect that this solution is going to come with it's own issues since Kodi is not going to see these files as being on a network drive, but at this point, I don't care, the files just don't play properly otherwise.
Note, Kodi's implementation appears to be the root cause of this issue as it is not platform specific in anyway. I was able to reproduce this issue perfectly on the newest OpenELEC build, as well as the latest windows build for Kodi. Also, all testing was done with a brand new Kodi installation/profile.
My question is why is this happening, and why don't I see more people complaining about this? I have been fighting with this issue ever since I started to appreciate higher quality files. Am I the only one playing large files over the network? Have the majority of users accepted the fact that with the default configuration Kodi is incapable of playing large video files over the network? Or does everyone already know that NFS sources should be manually mounted?